VIDEO: Furore over LGBTQ+ in Ghana needless, allow them, says Freddie Blay
Human rights activists in Ghana are protesting after a crowd, urged on by some MPs and opinion leaders, tore down billboards promoting acceptance of the LGBTQ community
- "I think there's too much hypocrisy about it. Emotions have been excited over it to the extent that we are not sober over it. I honestly do not see the hullabaloo about it. We should allow them if they want to."
Freddie Blay, the national chairman of the governing New Patriotic Party (NPP), has said that the furore over activities of the LGBTQI+ community in Ghana is unnecessary.
To mark Pride Month, LGBTQ+ activists mounted billboards in the capital, Accra, and two other cities, bearing the inscription “Love, tolerance and acceptance”.
Human rights activists in Ghana are protesting after a crowd, urged on by some MPs and opinion leaders, tore down the billboards, which were intended to promote tolerance towards the LGBTQ community.
Talking to Kwaku Nhyira-Addo on TownHall Talk on Asaase Radio (17 June), Blay said there is too much hypocrisy surrounding the matter in Ghana.
“If people want to be gays, it should be their own problem. I won’t go ahead to be a persecutor of those who want to be together as man and man or woman and woman,” the former MP said.
“I think there’s too much hypocrisy about it. Emotions have been excited over it, to the extent that we are not sober over it.
“I honestly do not see the hullabaloo about it. We should allow them if they want to.
“I don’t subscribe to gayism as a choice because I’m not attracted by that, but I don’t want to go into people’s bedrooms. I don’t want to see what they are doing,” Blay said.
Angry Tamale tresidents destroy LGBTQ+ billboard
Some angry residents of Tamale in the Northern Region have destroyed a billboard that was allegedly projecting the activities of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex (LGBTQI+) people in the metropolis.
The action came barely a week after a similar billboard that supposedly promoted LGBTQI+ activities was pulled down on the Accra-Tema Motorway.
The Tamale billboard bore the slogans ”Love, tolerance and acceptance” and #WeAreAllGhana, along with colours usually associated with the LGBTQ+ community.
Baba Kamil, the Northern Regional correspondent for Asaase News, has been following the story and filed this report:
Fred Dzakpata
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